A La Prochaine Fois

Do you want "a new agreement with the rest of Canada, based on the equality of nations"? That was the heart of the question placed before the people of Quebec in the May 20, 1980 referendum. René Lévesque's Parti Québécois was asking Quebecers for a mandate to negotiate "sovereignty-association", an idea that inflamed federalists and separatists alike. CBC Archives looks back at the vote that divided a province and changed a nation.

It failed twice, and it didn't prevent the annexation option from gaining 33% support in the province as of August 2001, as documented in this professional survey firm's polling for that period. Heck, in fact a majority of people supported adopting the U.S. dollar at that point: